This article seeks to examine how social welfare rights for asylum
seekers in Ireland were placed outside the confines of the law and placed within
a non-legislative system, where administrative fiat trumped all notions of
asylum seekers as rights bearers. Over a ten year period, asylum seekers were
fully excluded from mainstream social assistance structures in place. Welfare
rights were (and to a great extent, still are) viewed as being interlinked with
an individual¿s status as a citizen or lawful resident. Without
examining the historical development of the Irish welfare state, the initial
reaction to the arrival of asylum seekers included recognition of their welfare
rights, as being capable of enforcement and protection within the confines of
social welfare law. However, over time, welfare entitlements for asylum seekers were lessened and
differentiated from mainstream welfare provision. From an inclusive welfare
system that considered need over immigration status, asylum seekers in Ireland
have little in the way of definitive legal right or entitlement to the
separated system of welfare support, known as direct provision. The legal and administrative processes used to achieve this separation, and the
arguments made to justify placing asylum seekers outside Irish welfare law, are
explored in this article. Legal challenges to this separated and lesser system
of welfare entitlement, despite some initial success, have generally failed. I
argue that this system of separated asylum support has been (and will be
allowed) continue, due to the status of asylum seekers as non-citizens, whose
continued residence in Ireland is uncertain.